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Live session monitoring

Watching an active privileged session in real time — a redacted activity log, not video — sending a message to viewers, terminating from the viewer, and how it relates to session recording.

Written for whoever runs IT6 min readUpdated

Live session monitoring lets an authorised viewer watch a privileged session while it is happening, rather than only reviewing the recording afterward. Open it with Watch live, next to Terminate, on any active session row in Privileged → Sessions, /pam/sessions.

It is independent of session recording, on purpose

What a viewer actually sees

The stream auto-scrolls to the newest entry unless you have scrolled up to read something earlier. A closed or ended session shows "The session ended. This stream has closed."

Sending a message, and terminating the session

A message you send from the viewer reaches other people watching this session — it does not reach the operator's own terminal, and there is no way to type into their session from here. Use it to coordinate with a co-watching colleague, not to communicate with the person under observation.

Terminate ends the operator's connection immediately and closes the live stream for everyone watching. It is confirm-gated, since it has an immediate, irreversible effect on someone else's active work.

Who can watch, and when

Watching a session is gated on the credential's safe having Master Policy's Live monitor control turned on — either at the organisation level or through a Master Policy exception — and on the viewer holding session-content management permission. The "Watch live" button is available on every active session row unconditionally; if either requirement is not met, you will see the platform's refusal inside the viewer itself when you try, rather than the button being hidden in advance.

What to read next

  1. Master Policy and its exceptions — the Live monitor control that gates this feature.
  2. Session recording and transcripts — the separate, stored counterpart to watching live.

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